Goran Vujić

Methane emissions from landfills in Serbia and potential mitigation strategies: a case study

Open dumping and landfilling have represented the predominant method of waste management in Serbia during the past decades. This practice resulted in over 3600 waste disposal sites distributed all over the country. The locations of the sites and their characteristics have been determined in the framework of the presented study. The vast majority of disposal sites (up to 3300) are characterized by small deposition depth of waste and total waste volumes of less than 10,000 m3. Only about 50 landfills in Serbia contain more than 100,000 m3 of waste. These large landfills are responsible for more than 95% of the total CH4 emissions from waste disposal, which was assessed as 60,000 tons of CH4 in 2010. The evaluation of different measures [soil cover, compost cover and landfill gas (LFG) systems] for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions from Serbian landfills indicated that enhanced microbial CH4 oxidation (using a compost cover), as well as the installation of LFG systems, could generate net revenues as saved CH4 emissions are creditable for the European Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Scheme. In total between 4 and 7 million tons of CO2 equivalent emissions could be avoided within the next 20 years by mitigating CH4 emissions from Serbian landfills.

Challenges in technology transfer from developed to developing countries

Waste management has made big advances in the industrialised part of the world in the course of the last decades. Drivers for this, among others, were rising quantities of waste owing to growing consumption of goods as a result of increasing income and buying power on the one hand and public concerns about damages done to the environment caused by inadequate treatment and disposal of waste on the other hand. Lately, the aspect of reusing resources from waste has become more and more important, especially in regions that are dependent on imports of natural resources, such as the European Union. Considering Europe as an example, we can explore opportunities and limitations in waste management technology transfer, since that continent includes very highly developed regions like the Middle European countries (e.g. Germany and Austria) on the one hand and less developed and transition countries like Romania, Bulgaria and Serbia on the other hand. In general, the challenges elaborated below will also apply to technology transfer in other parts of the world, in detail however, the actual challenges depend on the historical development and the current state regarding the political situation and the technical infrastructure. In addition, special types of waste, such as tailings from mining, might well require the development of specific waste management approaches as the quality of waste depends on the production processes applied, which may differ from region to region. In Middle Europe there was a step-wise development of waste management improvements, starting in the 1980s with promulgation of regulations regarding the design of sanitary landfills to provide for safe disposal of municipal solid waste (MSW). As a next step, systems of nation-wide waste collection and separate collection of recyclables started to be implemented in the early 1990s. Once area-wide waste collection had been introduced, mechanical–biological treatment (MBT) plants evolved as an alternative to MSW incinerators. Both treatment options aimed to reduce the reactivity and quantity of MSW (mainly the organic fraction) that had to be landfilled. Regulations and their implementation processes changed over time based on positive and negative experiences and marketbased economics. So, for example, in Austria, MBT was an important approach for fulfilling the requirements of the Landfill Directive about 10 years ago. Concurrently, costs for traditional and emerging thermal treatment processes decreased, and costs for MBT trended upward owing to additional requirements imposed on the operators (such as off-gas treatment to control odours and reduce volatile organic compounds (VOC) emissions to the atmosphere). Therefore several MBT plants suspended operation of the biological treatment stages. As another example, the management of collection systems for plastics from packaging has been redesigned to improve efficiencies and increase the volume of higher-valued waste fractions based on experiences from sorting and recovery operations of these recyclables. Nowadays, in Middle Europe, specialised collection systems and sorting, as well as treatment plants, are constructed in order to enable the recovery of more resources from MSW. In Middle Europe, MSW management ultimately became a full partner with the established scrap industry in providing secondary resources for producing economies. So why don’t we simply transfer all this up-to-date technology and expertise to developing and transition countries? Skipping stages of development that have proven not to be economically viable could, in the long run, help to secure a sensible use of limited financial resources by avoiding building up of infrastructure that might not be needed anymore within a few years. Transferring experiences could also allow for a quicker evolution of waste management in developing countries. If we look at the factors that are important to achieve the state of development in waste management that has been achieved in Middle Europe we can name the following.

Municipal solid waste development phases: Evidence from EU27

Many countries in the European Union (EU) have very developed waste management systems. Some of its members have managed to reduce their landfilled waste to values close to zero during the last decade. Thus, European Union legislation is very stringent regarding waste management for their members and candidate countries, too. This raises the following questions: Is it possible for developing and developed countries to comply with the European Union waste legislation, and under what conditions? How did waste management develop in relation to the economic development in the countries of the European Union? The correlation between waste management practices and economic development was analysed for 27 of the European Union Member States for the time period between 1995 and 2007. In addition, a regression analysis was performed to estimate landfilling of waste in relation to gross domestic product for every country. The results showed a strong correlation between the waste management variables and the gross domestic product of the EU27 members. The definition of the municipal solid waste management development phases followed a closer analysis of the relation between gross domestic product and landfilled waste. The municipal solid waste management phases are characterised by high landfilling rates at low gross domestic product levels, and landfilling rates near zero at high gross domestic product levels. Hence the results emphasize the importance of wider understanding of what is required for developing countries to comply with the European Union initiatives, and highlight the importance of allowing developing countries to make their own paths of waste management development.

Evaluation of key driver categories influencing sustainable waste management development with the analytic hierarchy process (AHP): Serbia example

The problems of waste management have become increasingly complex in recent decades. The increasing amount of generated waste, adopted legislation in the field of waste management, administrative issues, economic impacts and social awareness are important drivers in achieving a sustainable waste management system. However, in practice, there are many other drivers that are often mutually in conflict. The purpose of this research is to define the precise driver and their corresponding sub-drivers, which are relevant for developing a waste management system and, on the basis of their importance, to determine which has the predominant influence on the slow development of a waste management system at the national and regional level, within the Republic of Serbia and similar countries of southeast Europe. This research presents two levels of decision making: the first is a pair-wise comparison of the drivers in relation to the goal and the second is a pair-wise comparison of the sub-drivers in relation to the driver and in relation to the goal. Results of performed analyses on the waste management drivers were integrated via the decision-making process supported by an analytic hierarchy process (AHP). The final results of this research shows that the Institutional–Administrative driver is the most important for developing a sustainable waste management system.

Financial implications of compliance with EU waste management goals: Feasibility and consequences in a transition country

This paper outlines the approach that can assist decision makers to have first preliminary insights regarding costs of complying with requested European Union municipal waste management goals in transition and developing countries. Serbia, as a joining member of European Union, must confront itself with the challenges resulting from European Union waste management directives. Implementation of waste separation units and the construction of sanitary landfills is already in place in Serbia. However, new waste management practice will need additional transformation and will require implementation of waste treatment technologies for additional management of generated waste. Implementation of analyzed best available technology/techniques for waste treatment can support the country’s effort in reaching the policy goals. However, the question here is how much will the implementation of additional waste treatments influence the overall waste management costs? Results of the scenario’s financial viability show that composting and sanitary landfill are the most viable solutions regarding the costs, even under increasing discount rates. Although different discount rates influence the overall gate fees and net present values, the level of affordability for different scenarios remains the same.

Group assessment of key indicators of sustainable waste management in developing countries

Decision makers in developing countries are struggling to solve the present problems of solid waste management. Prioritisation and ranking of the most important indicators that influence the waste management system is very useful for any decision maker for the future planning and implementation of a sustainable waste management system. The aim of this study is to evaluate key indicators and their related sub-indicators in a group decision-making environment. In order to gain insight into the subject it was necessary to obtain the qualified opinions of decision makers from different countries who understand the situation in the sector of waste management in developing countries. An assessment is performed by 43 decision makers from both developed and developing countries, and the applied methodology is based on a combined use of the analytic hierarchy process, from the multi-criteria decision-making set of tools, and the preferential voting method known as Borda Count, which belongs to social choice theory. Pairwise comparison of indicators is performed with the analytic hierarchy process, and the ranking of indicators once obtained is assessed with Borda Count. Detailed analysis of the final results showed that the Institutional–Administrative indicator was the most important one, with the maximum weight as derived by both groups of decision makers. The results also showed that the combined use of the analytic hierarchy process and Borda Count contributes to the credibility and objectivity of the decision-making process, allowing its use in more complex waste management group decision-making problems to be recommended.